Following her pair of prize-nominated books of 2012 (Inside, Signs and Wonders), Alix Ohlin has returned with Dual Citizens, a captivating novel that ponders the intricacies of family and the forms of personal freedom.

Postmedia News asked Ohlin, the Chair of UBC‘s Creative Writing Program, to comment on a few aspects of her novel.

Q:Your previous novel and short story collection received wide acclaim. Did you find such praise complicated the writing of Dual Citizens?

A: I feel very lucky that the last two books were well received. But when I’m writing, I don’t think very much about what happens around publication; it’s a more private, internal time, when I tunnel deep into the characters and the ideas of the book.

Q: One of your story’s centres is the tumultuous relationship between two sisters. Was it with their childhood that the novel began?

A: Dual Citizens started with the idea of a love story between sisters. I wanted to try to do justice to a relationship that can be complicated and difficult but also nurturing and formative and permanent. When you grow up with someone from childhood, that shared history is always a part of you no matter how far apart your adult lives take you, and there’s something so essential about that.

Q: Montreal assumes a vibrant, character-like role in your fiction. Now that you’re working in Vancouver, do you envision West Coast locales becoming part of the world of your fiction?

A: I grew up in Montreal so it’s in my bones, I think. I’m still learning my way around Vancouver; it’s a fascinating place but I’m only just getting to know it. Probably it’ll show up in my fiction in the years to come, after I’ve developed more of a relationship to it.

Alix Ohlin.EMILY COOPER /
PNG

Q: Dual Citizens is narrated by Lark, who nurses “a passion for regularity” and is at least once accused of being a “mouse.” Why did you choose someone who values invisibility to tell the story?

A: Lark is a quiet person who’s more comfortable observing other people than she is being observed. She becomes a filmmaker and film editor because her position behind the camera and in the editing room, feels very natural to her. To me she’s a good narrator because she watches so closely and notices so much of the world. And she also has room to grow over the course of the novel, eventually becoming better able to assert herself.

A: I’m interested in questions of citizenship, identity, and home; what does it mean to feel that you’re a citizen of somewhere — what responsibilities do you have, what privileges, what connections? I’m a dual citizen myself and sometimes I feel like I belong both places, and sometimes neither. There are a lot of levels to how we define belonging. And for a novel about two sisters — whose lives sometimes mirror each other and sometimes don’t — the idea of duality was interesting to explore.

Q: Lark and Robin are “self-chosen orphans” because Marianne, their mother, is, well, impossible. How did you go about creating a woman Lark describes as a “devil”?

A: Marianne is a difficult mother but she probably has reason to be. As Lark and Robin grow up their understanding of her evolves. Because of their unusual childhood, both sisters have flexible ideas about what a family is, what mothering is, and I liked following that development throughout their lives.